Gavin Menzies, Historian
A few weeks ago I received a flyer from a publisher who shall remain nameless. They are soliciting people to write pro and con essays on various historical cont...
Author: Alan Baumler
Family and Community in Asia (or, do my job for me)
As our regular readers know, there is a tradition here of posting our syllabai for comments. One class I will be teaching in the Fall is ASIA 200, Introduction ...
Has anyone seen the scissors?
Tang-dynasty scissors, via wikipedia Perhaps they are not as interesting as pigs, but I had a question about scissors. I was reading the 海王 chapter of Gu...
The changing world of scholarship
I got a box of books in the mail yesterday. This book to be exact I’m not really interested in reading it, as I assume I already know what’s ...
Does learning Chinese bring about world peace?
China Law blog asks an interesting question, and as they specifically call us out for a response, I thought I would say something. The question they asks is ...
Luoyang shovel
This is the famous 洛阳铲, or luoyang shovel, one of the most important tools in Chinese archeology. The basic idea is that you take it and shove it in the ground ...
Classes started today
And, as is something of a tradition here at the Frog, I am posting links to my syllabi for comments and suggestions. Actually we usually do this early enough to...
Bo Yibo 1908-2007
Bo Yibo has died He is probably best known today for being the father of one of the leading members of the so-called Prince’s faction and current Minister...
Pigs
How many pigs were there in China during the warlord era? I came across the wonderful site Strange Maps, and one of their offerings was a 1922 map of world hog ...
The uses of the past
I have been thinking about public history and the uses of the past a bit lately, and reading Craig Clunas’ Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social...
For the want of a Monsoon
According to Yahoo Asia Nature will be publishing an article tomorrow that claims that climate change was the cause of the fall of the Tang dynasty. A team of G...
Naughty or Nice?
As it is time to think about the good or bad behavior of children, I have been wondering why so many Chinese sage-kings had rotten kids. Lewis points out that o...
Chairman Mao’s teacher
A nice article in Modern China on Mao’s teacher Yang Changji. The article draws on Yeh Wen-Hsin’s work on the provincial background of many of the second group ...